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Bills
"Bills" is the tenth episode of the B Series of QI and the 22nd episode overall. It was first broadcast on BBC Two on 10 December 2004. It featured no new panellists. Scores Numbers in brackets mark appearances - e.g. "(2)" means "(second appearance)". # Clive Anderson (4): 1 points # Phil Kay (2): 0 points # John Sessions (4): -10 points # Alan Davies (22): -26 points Subjects *There are over 200 folk names for a pansy, more than any other flower, including "jolly jump-up and meet me in the corner", "tickle my fancy", "love idol", "kiss me in the buttery", "pink of my John" and Heartsease. The word "pansy" originates from the French word pensée meaning "thought" or "idea", because they were believed to help with the memory. You can eat them in a tea that can be used to help the complexion and clearing the phlegm. *Bottomry is when the master of a ship borrows money upon the bottom or keel of it, so as to forfeit the ship itself to the creditor, if the money is not paid at the time appointed with interest at the ship's safe return. *Buffalo Bill did nothing with buffaloes, because buffaloes in America are actually bison. The bison aren't even related to the buffaloes. In 18 months, Buffalo Bill killed 4,280 bison, while he worked for the Pony Express as a boy. The advert that Buffalo Bill applied to says "Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily, orphans preferred. Wages: $25 a week." The Pony Express only lasted 19 months, so Buffalo Bill was then hired by the Kansas Pacific Railway to kill bison to gather food for the construction workers. In Dances with Wolves, the Native Americans just killed them for fun. The Native Americans preferred to lure them over cliffs, by causing them to stampede, because they can't stop stampeding. Cows eventually replaced the bison, but they created a dust bowl, so then bison were re-introduced by crossing them with the cattle. There were 60 million bison at the end of the 17th century, down to a few hundred at the end of the 19th century. There are now around 50,000. *Sitting Bull's (who defeated General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn) real name was Jumping Badger. He inherited the name "Sitting Bull" from his father when he was a teenager. He killed his first bison when he was 10. He then took part in a rading on a pro-Crow Indian settlement. Bulls sit down when it's about to rain, like Ferdinand the Bull. His mother was called "Her-Holy-Door". *The BBC paid Hilda Wright 3 guineas for the 3 radio programmes of the Flower Pot Men. Since acquiring the rights, the BBC made £2 million from video sales of the series. She named Bill and Ben after her brothers. When they were naughty, their mother said Was it Bill or was it Ben?, which became the catchphrase of the show. Their little sister, Phyllis was Little Weed. *Billy the Kid and Ben-Hur are connected to Lew Wallace. He signed Billy the Kid's death warrant while he was Governor of New Mexico and wrote Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1880. As you go upstairs in a tall building, your thoughts in your head, your breathing and metabolism go faster, because time is slower, the weaker the gravity. (Note: This is incorrect. When gravity decreases, time speeds up.) *The best floor of a building to throw a cat without killing it is the 7th floor. Researchers studied records for veterinary casualty wards, and found that the higher up to the 5th floor, the rate of injury increased. But, after the 7th floor, they can reach their terminal velocity of approximately 60 mph. Like a squirrel, they spread themselves out and parachute down. Cats have even survived from falling aeroplanes. General Ignorance *The commonest material in the world is Perovskite,OxygenWater named after the mineralogist Count Lev Perovski. It's a mineral compound of magnesium, silicon and oxygen. It accounts for half of the world's mass and is what most of the Earth's mantle is made of. *In 63 AD, Pompeii was destroyed by an earthquake. Then of course around 16 years later, it was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius, even though it wasn't fully rebuilt. It's also due to erupt soon. It's also believed that the Phoenician civilization was finished by a volcanic eruption. *Roman Emperors ordered gladiators' deaths by putting their thumbs up,Thumbs down known as pollex infestus. The saving symbol involved placing the thumb inside the hand, known as pollex compressus (the thumb signified respectively a drawn and sheathed sword). The gladiator's sword is known as the gladius. *The organization that the Americans fought in the Vietnam War was the Việt Minh, named after their greatest hero, Hồ Chí Minh.Viet Cong The Americans invented the words "Việt Cộng", "Charlie" and "the Gooks". The CIA believed that "Việt Cộng" sounded more menacing and was associated with communism. Task The contestants were asked to draw a wigwam. Clive Anderson drew the pop group Wham! wearing wigs. The other panellists all drew teepees, rather than wigwams. The main difference between a teepee and a wigwam is that a teepee is made out of buffalo hide and sticks and were mainly lived in by Indians from the Great Plains, whereas wigwams are mainly made of hay and were lived in by Indians from the Northeast. Forfeits Category:B Series episodes Category:BBC Two episodes Category:2004 episodes Category:Clive Anderson wins Category:Phil Kay Category:John Sessions Category:Task episodes Category:Episodes